BILLBOARD REVISED

Catalyst September Issue 2002

Last year when we learned that an anti-Catholic billboard had been posted along Interstate 5 in southern Oregon, we decided to target the sign’s owners instead of the person who penned it. “The Pope is the Anti-Christ” is what the sign said.

Our first step was to ask the company, Outdoor Media Dimen-sions, to remove the offensive sign. When a spokesman defended it on freedom of speech grounds, we said, okay, we would like to post a sign along the highway as well. He asked what it would say and our reply was, “Outdoor Media Dimensions Sponsors Anti-Catholicism.” Suffice it to say he got our point.

Because there was a contract between the company and the author of the sign, we agreed to drop our protest if the contract was not renewed. It wasn’t. Though the sign we objected to was not taken down immediately, it has since been removed; it has been replaced with an obscure passage from Scripture.

Sometimes the best way to win is simply to turn the tables on our adversaries and call their bluff.